Full Tilt Poker Deal Close to Finished

Several reports have been released in the past week that pertain to the Full Tilt Poker deal and I thought it would be a great time to update our visitors on what’s been going on. Last week it was reported that a source close to the Groupe Bernard Tapie deal said the deal was almost completed. The only thing holding the deal back at this time is the cash that GBT needs.

GBT needs to come up with $80M to purchase the Full Tilt Poker assets that were forfeited last year. GBT also needs to be able to pay players outside of the United States over $150M+ in funds that are currently frozen. Recent reports have indicated that GBT may have found an investor or investors that want to fund the Full Tilt Poker project.

The fact that there have been some reports starting there may be new investors is a great sign. The deal relies on GBT coming up with enough money to fund the project, so finding investors has become a priority.

Chris Ferguson Has Hidden Bank Accounts?

In other news this past week, Subject Poker released an investigative report that showed Ferguson was in control of a hidden bank account that the US DoJ didn’t know about previously. The report states that Ferguson had access to a bank account with roughly $60M and Ferguson managed to withdraw/spend $45M of the funds in the account.

The funds that were left in the bank account were used towards paying back players after Black Friday and other expenses that the poker room incurred. Ferguson and his attorney (Ian Imrich) are now demanding that they receive the accounting from Full Tilt that happened after Black Friday.

Ferguson has made threats through his lawyer that he’ll try impeding upon the current Full Tilt deal with GBT. You can read the full report about the hidden bank accounts at Subject Poker to learn more about this recent revelation.

I’m unsure if Ferguson would be able to impede upon the Full Tilt Poker deal, but it shows you what type of person Ferguson is. The poker player that many fans watched and referred to as “Jesus” is definitely not the person many of us thought he was.

Based on reports from the US DoJ, the DoJ has only been able to seize $300,000 from Ferguson out of the $25M that was sent to his personal bank account in the USA over the years. Ferguson moved his money around frequently and there is no telling how much he could have hidden in bank accounts all over the world. It remains to be seen if Full Tilt Rakeback will still be available once they finally do relaunch.

Kevin has been in the poker world for over 10 years. He started out playing online poker and then transitioned to live cash games. During that time he traveled around the US in search of high stake ring games. Soon after Black Friday, Kevin transitioned into poker news journalism and is now the Editor-in-Chief of PokerEagles.com.